Employee Free Choice Act

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Help America's Workplace: How You Can Help Keep SEIU's Inside Man Out of the NLRB...

On Wednesday, a critical vote is taking place in a United States Senate subcommitte that affects nearly every working American regardless whether they own a business, or work for one.

SOME BACKGROUND...

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) affects nearly every employer and employee in the private sector (except airlines and railroads, which are covered by the Railway Labor Act).

Unions would like to change to National Labor Relations Act by passing a job-destroying law misleadingly named the Employee Free Choice Act, or EFCA, for short. EFCA is a bailout bill for union bosses in that it effectively eliminate secret-ballot votes on whether employees wish to become unionized or not, as well as lets the government dictate terms and conditions of employment (which includes wages and benefits) onto employees and their employers.

The National Labor Relations Board is a five-member independent agency established to administer and enforce the NLRA. Its members are appointed by the President.

On Inauguration Day, President Obama promoted former Teamster attorney and board member Wilma Liebman to the chairmanship of the NLRB. In addition, President Obama has nominated two other union attorneys, Mark Pearce and Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board.

Craig Becker, who currently works for both the AFL-CIO and the ACORN benefactor SEIU as associate general counsel is viewed as a union extremist for his views, which include:

Supports "home visits," in which union goons repeatedly harass workers at home until they sign union authorization cards (see here for an example of this intimidating practice)

Advocates letting government arbiters impose contracts on workers and employers on workers, without even allowing the workers to vote on the contract (a practice which even Far Left icon George McGovern opposes)

Believes employers should be absolutely prohibited from sharing any truthful and noncoercive information with employees about the effects of unionization

Illogically and radically compares union certification elections to US Congressional elections, stating that the only question decided in such elections should be which union gets monopoly control over workers, not whether they wish to remain independent and union free.

Read the National Right to Work Foundation's primer (PDF) on union radical Craig Becker here.

Big Labor’s plans to infiltrate and control vital components of the federal agencies tasked with overseeing their actions are unfolding right before our eyes. In seeking payback for the huge amounts of campaign dollars they expended in last year’s elections, union bosses are aggressively pushing their agenda in every corner of Washington, D.C. – starting with the forced unionization of small business through the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act.

Their latest effort is to push one of their own for a seat on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) – the very board set up to oversee union elections, investigate labor practices, and interpret the National Labor Relations Act. Big Labor bosses were able to persuade President Obama to nominate the Service EmployeesInternational Union’s (SEIU) associate general counsel Craig Becker for a seat on the board… not very different from having the fox guard the henhouse some might say.

The most troubling aspect of this nomination is that Becker already has a plan to use backdoor tactics to force unionization on millions of U.S. workers. He has written extensively about ways to re-write current union election rules in favor of the labor movement – all without a vote in Congress.

Becker would use the power of the NLRB to dictate pro-union practices that would affect every small business owner and employee in the country.

Take those tactics and combine them with Big Labor’s number one agenda item – the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act and you can see that a perfect storm is brewing that could result in the loss of the secret ballot in union organizing elections and government control over contract negotiations – all without input from the public.

The Wall Street Journal reported, “One of Big Labor’s priorities in Washington is to place allies in key government jobs where they can overturn existing labor policy without battles in Congress.”

And to make matters worse, the Democratic leadership in the Senate has refused to call a hearing on Becker’s nomination where Senators can question him and see where he stands on the important issues related to labor policy.

This is another attempt to rush something through without input from the public or even our representatives in Congress.

We need you to act TODAY! Please contact your U.S. Senators and Member of Congress and let them know you oppose Craig Becker’s appointment to the National Labor Relations Board. Let them know you oppose his backdoor tactics to force unionization on the workers in your community.

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